The information and photos
on this page are from many sources. We have done a lot of research ourselves,
especially searching through old newpapers and BDM records and visiting places
of interest in England and Australia. The assistance of
other family-history-minded members of the extended family has been invaluable,
including (but not limited to) Margaret Thomson, Audrey Walker, Carole
Wilkinson, Rob Bowler and the late Jim Bolton. Please
contact me if you
have additions, corrections or questions.
I would particularly like to hear from
you if you are related to
our branch of the Coates family.

Coates

William Augustus Coates

My great-great-great-great-grandfather, William Augustus
Coates, was born on 21 June 1748 in Westminster, London,
and baptised on 6 July 1748 in Westminster. His parents were
Thomas Coates and Elizabeth (probably Elizabeth née Knight)
of Saville Row, London. Thomas may have been a tailor. William Augustus Coates married Mary Denbigh on 2 January
1768 at St James Dukes Place, London. They had 6 children,
3 of whom became surgeons:

William Henry Coates,
surgeon
Born 4 July 1771 in Westminster, London; baptised 31 July 1771
at St James Dukes Place, London; died 3 April 1853 at The
Close, Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire. He
married Esther Davy (baptised 16 March 1782 in Brightwell and
Foxhall, Suffolk, England; died 20 January 1849 at The Close,
Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire). They were married on 4 April
1799 at St Mary Coslany, Norwich,
Norfolk. They had 3 children:

Charles Coates,surgeonBorn 16 June 1782 in Westminster, London; baptised 26 July 1782
at St James Dukes Place, London. He married Rosanna Bogle Middleton (1785-1853)
on 22 April 1816 at St Mary Abbott, Kensington (he was 'of the
parish of St George, Hannover Square').They had two children:Helen Rosanna Coates (1820-?)
who married William Ward in 1844 in London.
They migrated to
America in 1860 with their 3 surviving children: George Charles
Ward, Elizabeth Helen Ward and Frederick William Ward. Frederick John Robertson Coates
(1822-1877) who married Olivia Pittard in 1847 in Lambeth,
Surrey. They migrated to Australia on the
David Maciver in
1853 with their two children: Frederick Coates
(1849-1937) and Clara Olivia Coates (1850-1933).

Henry Coates, was born
on 25 November 1779 in
Westminster, London, and baptised on 10 May 1780 at St James Dukes
Place, London. He married Elizabeth Lambe (born
c1777) on 9 August 1802 at St
Pancras Old Church, London. On his marriage record, Henry is
described as being "of
the Parish of Sturminster Newton, Dorset". Elizabethdied
on 28 November 1844 at
Milford St, Salisbury, Wiltshire. Henry died on 6 April 1848 at Queen
Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire,
leaving his estate to his then unmarried daughter Sarah Ann Louisa.

Henry was admitted as an Apothecary,
Free by Servitude, on 6 August 1802, three days before his
marriage. His appointment as a Consultant Surgeon at the Salisbury
Infirmary began in 1804 and lasted until his retirement in 1847. A
record of his career is summarised on the Honour Board 1776-1974, now
at the new Salisbury District Hospital, which replaced the Salisbury
Infirmary. Florence Nightingale started her nursing career at
Salisbury Infirmary during Henry Coates’ time as a Consultant
Surgeon. Henry's brother William Henry Coates was also a surgeon in
Salisbury, as were two of William's sons.

John Charles Knight Coates
Born 23 May 1811 in Salisbury, Wiltshire; baptised 9 August 1812 at
Salisbury St Thomas, Wiltshire. He is recorded in the London
Medical Gazetteon 7 April 1836 as having gained his
Apothecary's certificate. He married Selina Webb
on 11 June 1836 in Eynsham, Oxfordshire. No further records have
been identified.

Sarah Ann Louisa Coates (Ann Sarah Louisa Coates)
Baptised 13 June 1812 at Salisbury, Wiltshire. She was
the sole heir to her father's estate.
In 1849 she married a surgeon, Andrew Bogle Middleton (1819-1879), and they lived in The Close, Salisbury, where he was
in General Practice. There were no children of this marriage.
Sarah died on 29 April 1872 in Salisbury; there is a plaque dedicated
to her and her husband in Salisbury Cathedral.

Henry William Coates was born on 11 November 1805 in
Salisbury, Wiltshire and baptised on 6 December 1805 at Salisbury St Edmunds, Wiltshire.
He married Marianne Calmady Richardson (1809-1896)
on 21 August 1834 in St Mary Abbots, Kensington, London. She was the
daughter of Warwick Calmady Richardson and Marianne Walker.
The Calmady family of Langdon Court, Devon, were landed gentry who
can be traced back for hundreds of years.

Henry William came from a family of surgeons but does not appear to
have had much enthusiasm for the profession.
He qualified for the licentiate in medicine and surgery of the
society of Apothecaries on 6 March 1834 (Guildhall Library,
Ms.8241/6, p.407). This was his second attempt: he had been rejected
when first reporting for his finals on 7 February 1828. According to
the entry for the latter date in the Candidates’ Entry Books (Hall
Registers) of the Society’s Court of Examiners (Ms.8241/4, p.365), he
was the son of Henry Coates, of Salisbury, Wiltshire, apothecary, a
freeman-member of the Society, and was bound apprentice to his
father on 3 September 1822 for term of seven years. His date of
birth is given as 6 December 1805. Having attended his lectures and
clinical demonstrations according to the syllabus then in force, he
is on record as having attended ‘for several years occasionally at
the Salisbury Infirmary’ as a student. It does not appear that he –
on expiration of his term of apprenticeship – took up his freedom of
the Society at a London guild, but decided to qualify as a
practitioner under the provisions of the Apothecaries’ Act of 1815.

The Royal College of Surgeons of England recorded that Henry William
Coates was a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (L.S.A.) on
6 March 1834, and a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of
England (M.R.C.S. Eng.) on 26 April 1833. His address in the College
records was always “Salisbury”. They have no record of his emigration
to Australia. He did not inform the College of that fact or ask to have
his name listed in the British Medical Directory after it commenced
in 1847.

At the time of his marriage in 1834, he was apparently living in London.
Then he
was in Norfolk for a period before departing London on
7 October 1838 as a surgeon on the Resource. He
arrived in Port Adelaide, SA, with his wife and two surviving
children, on
23 January 1839. He practised as a surgeon in early South
Australia in various locations, finally settling in the Lyndoch
Valley.

Mr Henry Coates,
Member of the College of Surgeons of London, and Licentiate of the
Apothecaries' Hall,
begs leave to inform his friends and the public in general, that he
has removed from the Port to Sturt-street,
near the Queen's Arms, Adelaide.
[South Australian Register, 9 August 1845]

In 1847 he was unfairly charged with medical manslaughter and was
acquitted after a trial which was sympathetically and colourfully
reported in the local press.

On 16 March 1851, Henry William Coates was found dead beside the
road by a group of Germans, near where he lived in the Lyndoch
Valley. He was 45 years old and the cause of death was "an act of
God" according to the inquest held in the Lord Lyndoch Hotel. He was
buried in the Gawler Old Cemetery and his name is now listed on the
commemorative plaque in Pioneer Park, Gawler, SA, Australia.

His widow Marianne was newly pregnant and had eight children aged
between 14 years and 7 months. Five months later she was flooded out
of her home:THE
FLOODS.-In Lyndoch Valley, the flood of
rain on the 18th caused considerable damage, not only in
washing away a large amount of grain, but also in destroying
a quantity of fencing. About 8 o'clock the Valley
was one sheet of water, reaching above the second rail of
the fences. One family, Mrs. Coates and children, were
obliged to seek shelter in the schoolmaster's residence, their
own house having two feet of water in it. [Adelaide
Observer 30 August 1851]

She returned to Adelaide and lived for a period in a home
for the destitute in North Adelaide, where her last child Emily was
born in December 1851, and where her second youngest child
Ellen Laura died a year later.

By 1856 Marianne Coates had relocated
with all or most of her children from Adelaide to the Victorian
Goldfields. On 10 January 1856 'in Mr
Cayley's tent', Daisy Hill Diggings, she married Henry
Hutchinson of
Gloucester, England. He was a digger, aged 28, and she stated
her age as 39 (she was 47). Her eldest daughter Kathleen married
Alfred Cayley on the same day. Marianne and Henry Hutchinson's
marriage was probably one of convenience, perhaps financial, as there
is no further evidence of him in her life. However, she stayed in
contact with her children and was a witness to several of her
grandchildren's births.

Marianne exchanged a life of some privilege
in England to a rough, difficult life in the Australian bush. Her
first marriage was in a grand church in Kensington, London, and her
second in a tent on the diggings. It appears that she may have
embraced her new surroundings, as evidenced by what she describes as
her first and last attempt at versifying, written in 1847:

The Bushmans life

Who would not lead a Bushmans life
A life so happy and free
with plenty of fun & naught of strife
But mirth and heart felt glee

Then Hurrra Hurra
Hurra for the Bush Hurra

At Morn no ominous clock doth tell
The hour for us to rise;
The Sun is our Glorious matin bell
With him we know time flies

Chorus

There is plenty of sport for the Bushman who
Loves on his stead to roam
And follow with dogs the swift Emu
Or Kangerroo to his doom

Chorus

No traveller need want a place of rest
When a Bushmans hut is near
For tho plain the fare & rough the nest
The welcome is true and sincere

Chorus

Then give to me the Bushmans life
A life so happy and free
My horse, my dog, my gun, my knife
Are all in all to me

Chorus

my first and last attempt at versifying 1847 M Coates
Lyndoch Valley S.A.

Marianne died on 10 Jun 1896 at Outtrim, VIC,
Australia and she was buried in the Korrunburra Cemetery, without a
headstone.

Marianne and Henry William Coates had 10
children:

Alfred John Coates
Born 13 May 1835 in London; baptised 27 May 1835 All Saints,
Bishops-Fonthill, Wiltshire; died 20 August 1835 in England.

Henry William Coates
Born 4 April 1836; baptised 5 September 1838 St Luke's, Chelsea,
London. He came to Adelaide with his parents and
sister in 1839, but no records of his life or death have been
definitively identified.

Frederick Charles Coates
Born 13 December 1843 in Port Adelaide, SA, Australia. He was a
miner and did not marry. He died in November 1905 in East
Melbourne.

Warwick Calmady Coates
Born 22 April 1847 in Lindock Valley, SA, Australia. He married
Barbara Murray (1849-1928) on 3 March 1870 at
Talbot, VIC, Australia. He died at age 31 years on 11 July 1878
in Hay, NSW. Two years after his death, his widow
Barbara married his older brother, John Lamb Coates.
Barbara and Warwick had 4 children:William Warwick Coates (1870-1958);
married
Mary McKinnon in 1895 in Hay; they had 2children: Veronica Blanche Coates and Edna McKinnon
Coates.
John Daniel Coates (1872-1971 in Chicago IL,
USA); married (1) Kate Mary Teresa Keating on
25 October 1897 in
St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney,
hours before they boarded the
Mariposa to emigrate to America; they settled in Chicago where
he became a streetcar motorman and engineer;
They had 3
children: Stanley Joseph Coates; Emmett Coates; Marion Ursula
Coates.
John Daniel Coates married (2) Mary Sullivan
in later life. Frederick Montague Coates (1875-1962);married Jane Anne Wrathall in 1902 in
Hay; they had one child: Lorna Wrathall Coates. Henry Calmady Coates (1877-1879
accidentally drowned in a lagoon at Marked Tree Point, NSW).

John Lamb Coates was born
on 6 June 1840 in Hindmarsh, SA, Australia to Henry William
Coates and Marianne Calmady Coates née Richardson.
He was the first of Henry and Marianne's children to be born in
Australia, 17 months after his parents had arrived from England with
their two surviving children. He was baptised on 26 November 1840 in
Adelaide, SA. He married twice. His
first marriage was to Elizabeth Raeburn (1855-1877)
on 13 January 1875 in Navarre, VIC. She was the daughter of Robert Raeburn and
Elizabeth
Hart. At the time of their marriage he gave his occupation
as farmer, present address Banyena Station, and usual address Gre
Gre near St Arnaud. Elizabeth was in poor health for most of the two
years of their marriage. She
died at age 22 on 30 January 1877 at Banyena, VIC, from "jaundice,
haemorrhage, exhaustion". John's second marriage was to his widowed
sister-in-law, Barbara Coates née Murray on 14
September 1880 in Hay, NSW, Australia.

John grew up in Hindmarsh, Port Adelaide,
Adelaide, Gawler and the Lindoch Valley. After his father died
suddenly in 1851 the family moved to North Adelaide where they lived
in a benevolent home for the destitute. His youngest sister Emily
was born there. John later stated that he had arrived in Victoria in
1854 per the Albion. He would have been 14 years old and
presumably travelled with some or all of his family.

John and his brothers were miners on the Victorian Goldfields, in the
Talbot area. John also worked as a
slaughterman from at least 1865, perhaps when he was out of luck mining gold.
On 4 October 1865, he was admitted to the Talbot hospital with a
compound fracture of the skull. He discharged himself on 6 November
and was then readmitted 12 days later and stayed for 6 weeks.

He then appears to
have become an agricultural labourer before taking up a selection of
320 acres at Banyena in January 1874. As a selector he was required to build a dwelling
and make improvements to the land to a specified annual value. It
was later suggested that he was a "dummy" selector for William
Pilgrim who owned adjoining land, and for whom John worked. Evidence
was given by their neighbours, the Tuckers, in a December 1876
application to the Land Court to have the land forfeited and
reassigned to John Tucker:

Extract from Benjamin Tucker's statement:

Considering the application for
forfeiture of John Coates selection at Banyena I may say that he has
been always considered a Dummy for Mr Pilgrim ever since he first
pegged it out, as on one or more of his corner posts when or after
he pegged it out was written John Coates Dummy for Wm Pilgrim. Mr
Pilgrim's team has carted the material to build the house and what
is called Mr Pilgrim's carpenter (Mr Bonhem) built the house
residing at Mr Pilgrims while building it. The land that is ploughed
was done by Mr Pilgrim's plough and team of bullocks and the fencing
was carted by Mr Pilgrims team. And I believe for the last 18 months
there has not been one hours work done on the selection as
improvements. John Coates being a servant of Mr Pilgrim a long time
previous to his selecting and I believe has never ceased .... since
that time and whatever has been done on the ground I believe has
been at the expense of Mr Pilgrim and the said Mr Pilgrims sheep and
cattle has grazed the land ever since it has been in the possession
of the said John Coates. I believe the improvements would have been
put on but another party that was put on another selection
previously refused to make a transfer to Mr Pilgrim consequently the
putting on of improvements to John Coates selection stopped 18
months ago. And I believe that the said John Coates is now merely
holding possession of the selection until Mr Pilgrims son is of age
to take it up as was done in the case of Susan Pilgrim daughter of
the said Wm Pilgrim by Mr Bonhem who forfeited or gave it up as soon
as Susan Pilgrim came of age to select.

Extract from Benjanim's son, John Tucker's
statement:

2. Improvements. One weatherboard hut
covered with bark, about 250 bull oak posts erected (no wire or
rail) and about 30 acres of land partially ploughed 2 seasons ago
(not one acre fenced).
3. That John Coates is at present residing on the said Land and
working on the farm of Mr Pilgrim.
4. That the said Land has been and is now used for grazing by Mr
William Pilgrim.
5. That the said Land was not applied for by the said John Coates in
his own proper person but the said John Coates is the agent and
servant of Mr William Pilgrim of Banyena aforesaid.

On 7 February 1877, at a hearing of the Local
Land Board at St Arnaud, it was recommended that John Coates
license be forfeited, he consistently taking no interest whatever in
his selection and being anxious to get clear of it. The
incoming selector was John Tucker.

Extract from William Pilgrim's unsuccessful
protest:

The facts are these truly. John Coates
has been living with me for four years or more and got married out
of my place. I advised him to take up some land which he did and
that I would assist him to carry on provided he repaid me when able
through the produce of his land. Now he owes me nearly £100 for which I hold his
acceptance and since his wife died lately it appears that he has had
some dealings with Tucker and hence the action taken. What I desire
Sir is that you allow the land to be put up for auction that I may
have a probable chance of getting my money as I feel almost certain
I shall not get it from J. Coates. I further declare I had no
interest in the land and was only desirous of doing Coates a kindly
favour.

It appears that John Lamb Coates moved to Hay
at some time in 1877, after Elizabeth's death, and after it was
stated he was anxious to get clear of his selection. He may
have travelled alone to Hay, or with his sister Isabel Louisa, her
husband James Valentine, and their five surviving children. His
brother Warwick Calmady Coates, his wife Barbara and their three
children may have already been in Hay for a year or two, or the
three siblings and their families may all have travelled together.
Barbara's father, William Montague Murray, and her brother Donald
(aka Daniel) and his family were already living in Hay.

Warwick's wife Barbara Murray
had been born on 10 July 1849 in
Melbourne, VIC, Australia to Scottish emigrants William Montague
Murray and Elizabeth McEwan; Barbara had a twin, Christina, who died at
about 4 months of age. Barbara had married Warwick Calmady
Coates on 3 May 1870 in Talbot, VIC.

Barbara and Warwick had four children:

William Warwick Coates
Born 8 August 1870 at Rocky Flat near Talbot, VIC. He married
Mary McKinnon (1875-1929) on 13 November 1895 in Hay, NSW.
He died on 4 June 1958 at Murwillumbah, NSW.
They had 2 children:Veronica Blanche Coates
(1896-1985) who married Allen Patrick O'Meara; they had 2 children;
Edna McKinnon Coates
(1907-1934) who married Frederick George Boase Stratford on 18
September 1929 in Lismore, NSW; they had 2 children.

John Daniel Coates
Born 6 March 1872 at Rocky Flat near Talbot, VIC. He married (1)
on 25 October 1897 in Sydney, NSW, Kate Mary Teresa
Keating (1870-1925). Later on the same day they
sailed for America on the Mariposa; they settled in Chicago IL
where he worked as a streetcar motorman for many years. He died
1 December 1971 in Chicago, IL, aged 99 years and 9 months.
They had three children who all died in their early 20s, during
flu epidemics:Stanley Joseph Coates, born 15 July
1899 in Chicago, IL, died 16 March 1922 in Chicago, IL;Emmett Coates born 23 August 1901 in
Chicago, IL, died 18 November 1924 in Chicago, IL;Marion Ursula Coates born 22 October
1905 in Chicago, IL, died 5 August 1926 in Chicago, IL.
John Daniel Coates married (2) a widow Mary E Ford née
Sullivan (c1877-1952).

Frederick Montague Coates
Born 8 February 1875 at Rocky Flat near Talbot, VIC. He married
Jane Anne Wrathall (1874-1952) on 30 April 1902
in Hay, NSW; they settled in Albury. He died on 13 January 1962
in Albury, NSW.
Fred and Jane had one child:Lorna Wrathall Coates (1904-1949) who
married Kenneth James Bowler (1902-1939); they
had 2 sons.

Henry Calmady (Cal) Coates
Born 23 December 1877 in Hay, NSW and died 20 August 1879 at the
Marked Tree Point near Hay, NSW. He accidentally drowned in a
billabong.

The Coates and their cousins the Valentines lived at Marked Tree Point, near Hay, NSW. It was a small
settlement on a beautiful bend in the Murrumbidgee River, where the
explorer Sturt marked a tree in 1829. Close by is an extensive black
box forest, the timber from which was favoured by the
paddle-steamers which plied the river system at that time as the
main means of transporting wool and other produce. John became a
wood cutter and carter, supplying wood for the riverboats. His
stepson and nephew, William Warwick Coates, told his grand-daughter Audrey that
he remembered helping his stepfather John by carrying bundles of
wood across the plank onto the boats.

On 11 July 1878, Warwick Calmady
Coates died in Hay, leaving a widow Barbara and their four
young sons: William Warwick Coates, John Daniel Coates, Frederick
Montague Coates and Henry Calmady Coates.

Accident. - Mr Warwick Coates, son-in-law of Mr Murray, the tailor,
of Hay, while chopping wood on Tuesday at his place, near the Marked
Tree Point, suffered an extremely severe jar from the axe rebounding
from a knot in the log. His right arm and side were paralysed and
some bloodvessels burst in his head, rendering him unconscious and
powerless - he lay in a comatose state for two days, when
consciousness began to return and hopes are now entertained of his
recovery.
[The
Riverine Grazier (Hay),
Saturday 6 July 1878]

Further tragedy struck a year later, on 20
August 1879, when their youngest child, 19-month-old Henry Calmady
Coates (Cal), wandered away and accidentally fell down the steep
bank of a lagoon and was drowned. His older brother William Warwick
Coates blamed himself and had guilty feelings for the rest of his
life. William had gone to the shop to get the milk early that
morning and he did not realise that young Cal had tried to follow
him and then fell into the lagoon. William was sent to school that
day to get him away from the upset, but he was late and was caned
for his excuse that his brother had died in the “bloody” dam.

Two years after Warwick's death, John
Lamb Coates married his younger brother Warwick's widow,
Barbara Coates née Murray, on 14 September 1880 in Hay. They had
three children, Alfred Henry Coates,
Marianne Coates and John Lamb Coates jnr.
who died aged 2 years.

Over the years, John worked as a wood cutter
and carter, a fettler (stated occupation on his son's death
certificate in 1888) and a slaughterman. In 1895 he was working as a
slaughterman in Hay for a butcher, William Horne, when he stated
during a court case about alleged cattle stealing (for which he was
acquitted) that he had been "slaughtering for 30 years". It is the
occupation given on his death certificate. His later years were
spent in Albury where John and
Barbara owned a house close to that of Barbara's son Frederick Montague
Coates and his wife. In their final years they moved to
Cootamundra to live with their daughter Marianne and her husband
Frank James Bolton.

Barbara Coates died on 26 March 1929 at Cootamundra, NSW, Australia and John Lamb Coates died
on 1
February 1929 at Cootamundra, NSW, Australia. They are both buried
in Cootamundra Cemetery.

Barbara and John had three children:

Alfred Henry Coates, my
grandfather, see below.
Born 23 December 1881 at Marked Tree Point, Hay, NSW, Australia. He
died on 27 December 1967 in Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

Marianne Coates
Born 29 March 1884 at Hay, NSW, Australia. She married Frank J
Bolton (1883-1958) on 7 June 1910 in Albury, NSW,
Australia. She died in 1961 in Rockdale, NSW.
Marianne and Frank had 3 children:James Frederick (Jim) Bolton
(1912-1988) who married Joan Valmay Hope Elms,
no children; Horace Clarence Bolton
(1916-1921); Jean Bolton (1922-1924).

John Lamb Coates
Born 29 March 1886 at Hay, NSW, He died at age 2 years on 24
June 1888 at Marked Tree Point, Hay, NSW, Australia.

Alfred Henry Coates was born on 23 December 1881 at Marked
Tree Point, near Hay, NSW. He grew up in the Hay district
but later settled in
the Lismore, NSW, area. He initially had a dairy farm at Woodlawn (near
Lismore), but then opened Coates Garage in Lismore where he was at
the leading edge of motor mechanics, especially trucks, in the early
20th Century. He was reputed to be very competent and his business
expanded.

He married Helen Smith on 15
November 1911 in Brisbane, QLD, Australia.

Helen was born on 25 January 1882 in Bathurst, NSW, to
George Smith
and Sarah Jane Wilson. Her early years were in Bathurst, then on a
dairy farm at Wolumna near Bega, NSW, before her family moved to Brisbane,
QLD,
when her father retired.

Alfred Henry Coates died on 27 December 1967 in Brisbane, QLD, and Helen died on
13 July 1971, also in Brisbane, QLD.

Alfred and Helen had 3 children:

Graeme John Coates
Born in 1915 in Lismore, NSW. He married Catherine
Croker (1914-1976) in 1942 in Roseville, NSW. He died
in 1983 in Bowral, NSW. They had 3 children.